Continuing on from last week’s conversation kick-off - here’s a little more fuel …

• The lessons God’s taught you - what purpose did they serve? Sometimes we make a distinction between “positive lessons” and seasons of trial or some such. Seems unlikely though that God defines His lessons this way.

• Often, when first staring in the face of challenges my joy over what God had prepared for the road ahead was … well, not abundant. A change of perception usually comes after I parked my attitude, my ego, and my pride and knuckled down. On the other side these less welcome lessons frequently “magically” morph into treasured growth points.

Can you relate? You probably can. We may come from all over - but we have the same Heavenly Father and He is eager to teach us how to see Him, hear Him, experience Him - the real Him, in truth, every day.

And why is this? Because just like you might go out of your way to shout out to someone about to get into their car and drive off with their freshly purchased latte still parked on the roof - God is not eager to see us careen off without His full truth on the situations we’re about to walk through.

When God brings something to our attention though - usually much more than some deliciously decadent latte is at stake.

If you’ve endeavored much to grow wiser, stronger in your faith - you already know these things.

But I want to talk about these things because today I want to remind myself that perhaps - hidden in some of the discomforts I feel nowadays is not only the blessing of the Lord’s correction - but the blessing of seeing God’s goodness - His gracious parenting - His wonderful training at work in my life again. I don’t say this because I have a clue in the world how to solve the world’s troubles right now - or even my own - but because if He has taught me anything it is that painful circumstances perceived and then put into His hand precede a bit more of His wisdom learned, more of His love felt, more fellowship with others of His family who are walking the same path.

And - I don’t know about you, but experience also teaches me that a discomfort invariably also stems from my not quite practicing all His disciplines as He intended, and rather over-practicing one of my, ahem, favorite weaknesses … see where others could improve their practice of His disciplines. Sigh.

And this seems as good a time as any to sit down and do a gut-check and make sure that I’m living as fully obediently as possible. We are not encouraged in Scripture to practice some of God’s ways. They are not buffet items - but rather critical components of a cure - a sin cure. The whole thing together is God’s formula for humbly experiencing His grace and life-abundant. It’s a beautiful and powerful way to walk before Him, full of opportunities to serve Him and bring honor to His Kingdom. It is His salvation we experience in this life before we go onto the next and experience His Salvation in full.

It is good to come to Him already cognizant of the reality that the problem isn’t “them” - it’s me and my need for more of Him. So let’s check our car-roof for a forgotten latte, or as Scripture calls it - a log in my eye. There’s always one there. That’s what’s so humbling. If we can’t see it though - He is merciful and will help us.